1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink composition for ink jet recording and an ink jet recording method using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ink jet recording has many advantages, for example, recording can be carried out at high-speed, there is little noise, coloring is easy, high resolution can be achieved and recording on plain paper can be carried out. As a result of these advantages, equipments and facilities employing this recording method have become remarkably widespread. Regarding the ink used in this recording method, an aqueous ink is the most commonly used in terms of safety, odor, and the like. Further, in the ink jet recording method, images are formed by ejecting thousands of droplets or more of the ink per second.
In the past, aggregation and color bleeding might occur when high-speed printing is carried out by an ink jet recording method. Specifically, the aggregation refers to a phenomenon where a second ink liquid droplet arrives before a first ink liquid droplet is completely absorbed into paper and the two droplets are combined or aggregated together to form a large liquid droplet, which reduces the image resolution. Further, the color bleeding refers to a phenomenon where image sharpness or color quality is degraded as a result of the two liquid droplets to be combined including colorants of different colors.
There has been proposed a method in which ink that is gelled in response to heat is used and printing is carried out on a recording element (paper) that has been heated to a temperature higher than that of the ink for the purpose of the solving of the problems of color bleeding in the high-speed printing (refer to JP2003-285532A). In addition, there has been proposed an aqueous ink for ink jet, which contains a thermally reversible thickening polymer in order to eliminate blurring and color bleeding, and form a high-color development image (refer to JP1997-039381A (JP-H9-039381A)).